Over the last year, several of the largest publishers including Hachette, MacMillian, and Apple were sued by the Department of Justice. The suit was filed after the DOJ determined that the publishers had fixed prices on eBooks. You can read the past articles that have followed this story by clicking here.
All of the publishers agreed to settlements with the exception of Apple. This week, a judge determined that, “Apple had violated antitrust law in conspiring with publishers to raise prices of e-books.”
Apple plans to appeal the decision. In a statement from Apple spokesman, Tom Neumayer he said: “Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations. When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry.”
Statements from the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, seemed to do more harm than good. Past emails, and other correspondence were used to make the ruling against Apple. One of the most damaging was sent to Eddy Cue, Apple’s VP of Marketing in which Jobs wrote regarding contract with publishers: “I can live with this, as long as they move Amazon to the agent model too for new releases for the first year. If they don’t, I’m not sure we can be competitive.”
Updates on the appeal will be forthcoming.
